I was hit with an epiphany earlier. It was borne of anger and frustration and general malaise. Oh, and that pesky cancer-of-the-perspective that occaisionally flares up. It was really about the whole traditional marriage/same sex marriage debacle when I was looking at the people touting both sides of the issue and clearly I saw myself in the middle of this power struggle and I finally had the oportunity to voice my $.02. I looked over at the heterosexuals who think that passing an amendment to the constitution (state and federal, it's the same fucking thing when you distill the bullshit off) will protect their traditional heterosexual marriages and said in no uncertain terms to them "Motherfuck you people and your baseless, bullshit logic - because I'm 1,000,000 X better than the lot of you combined." Then I looked over to the people striving for 'marriage equality' as an ideal - gay and straight proponents alike - and said (also in no uncertain terms) "And fuck y'all too. Get your heads out of your asses and look at the real issues here. They're not out to protect 'marriage', they're not protecting a goddamned thing. We're all sinners in their eyes and that is NEVER. GOING. TO. CHANGE. Their aim is to preserve MATRIMONY, the religious institution, from all of us Godless fornicators. They just call it protecting marriage because they're too fucking stupid to know the goddamned difference. The Evangelicals and born-agains are mostly Republican, and they have a 13% higher rate of divorce than heterosexual athiests/agnostics do, so you tell me - you want to emulate that standard of success? Success at achieving what, exactly - substandard mediocrity? The strive to be equal to a bunch of microcephalic, hypocritical windbags is truly pathetic, particularly in light of the fact that half of the goddamned time not even THEY can get their relationships right. Fuck you for trying to be equal to that, and fuck you for not trying to be BETTER than that. Because I know *I* am better than that.

Damien and I are better than my parents and siblings about our relationship. We're better than his parents too. I refuse to accept criticism from anyone who has been divorced before - least of all a fundamentalist Conservative - on what I should be allowed to have. It's the equivalent of a pro-life male to me, and I've had that argument countless times in the past - just as I will countless times in the future. It always results in "I'll tell you what, pal - the next time YOU get cramps, I'll personally buy you the fuckin' Midol. Until then, FUCK RIGHT OFF."

I got another news alert about the story in Atlanta [1|2|3|4|5|6] - this golf club and the ensuing 'discrimination' chaos around it. I've been working out a post in my head about this entire thing, and it seems to just keep getting exponentially bigger in my anger soaked psyche. The more I think about this and compare and contrast it in my head, the more I taste my own blood and bile. The crux of it is this: Druid Hills Gold Club will not allow two gay members to have their partners treated as spouses, as dictated by the rules set in place by the club since its formation. This is where I get shit for my opinions surrounding this matter, and I welcome it. If you have the proverbial sack to ante up, bring it with you and I'll tear it off like a goddamned paper towel. I'm feeling more venomous today than Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin's combined snatches anyway, in case you missed it.

I am 34 years old, 35 years old as of next month. Now I can SAY that I'm 35 all day long, but just because I SAY it does not make it so. You dig? Good. Damien is my partner. He is not, nor will he ever be as current legislation dictates, my husband - nor am I or will I be his. I do not refer to him as my husband, nor do I accept him referring to me as his. And I damn sure don't want to be referred to as a 'husbear', because I think that term is just rigodammndiculous. I'm getting off point here.

The argument here is discrimination, even though both plaintiffs are in good standing as members of this club. They are allowed by club rules to bring their partners and friends WITH THEM as they see fit, but cannot extend their partners usage of their membership priviledges as do heterosexual members with their legal spouses. SPOUSES. That's the key word here. So basically, it's the argument that transexuals have had to suffer forever in the face of intolerance and bigotry - only with different embellishments and no validity whatsoever. Speaking of embellishments, I still cannot get over the fact that these jackasses shelled out $40,000 just for the priviledge of being allowed to BE a member of this club, let alone the $500 in additional monthly fees. You assholes knew going into this place what the rules were, you had no real reason to think that they were going to bend the rules and you REALLY had no reason to get pissy when they operate within their own rights to not redefine their rules and terms. I've said at least 5 times this week over different scenarios "Look, you knew this snake would bite when you picked it up, so don't cry when you get bitten!" Pick a sensible battle, for fuck's sake! Persuing antidiscriminatory legal action against an organization when it says 'no' to you, yet is acting within the law? That's like a flamingo being denied access to a lion's den at the zoo and the flamingo somehow thinking it's being treated unfairly. How about this, Mr. Flamingo - YOU'RE A WILD ANIMAL LOCKED IN THE FUCKING ZOO!! If you're really going to make the complaint, consider first if it is in your best interests to first be where you are before your major concern is whether or not the water's too cold.

These pretentious queers want their partners to have the right to hobnob at an exclusive club, and they're willing to go to bat for the issue, but what about the 1,049 rights afforded to legally married spouses simply based on the fact that they are heterosexual unions? Apparently that doesn't matter, only being able to holler "Fore!" while playing the most boring fucking game in an exclusive private club. 'Cause if you can't pretend to be something you're just not in the eyes of the law and the society at large, that's really the definition of discrimination and it's really the problem of those intolerant people and not yourself. You're not riding in the back of anyone's goddamned bus that you don't choose to, you're not being excluded based on your sex, you're not being told that because you're a queer you can't play there, so FUCK OFF. All you're accomplishing is giving the assholes that come up with REAL discriminatory shit a reason to keep doing it.

Thanks for yet another setback, fuckers. You would do well to renounce your stupidity instead of wearing it like a shining fucking merit badge.

Really excellently said. I think you've summed up what I've been trying to articulate but couldn't get words around for a while. People seem to think that this whole thing is all about marriage and they (both sides) base their argument from that starting point but really they're missing the point. This isn't about marriage really, this is about giving every human being equal rights, that's the bottom line. If more people on the pro gay marriage side of things argued it that way I think they'd get a lot further but instead they're allowing themselves to be mired in the marriage debate, which will drag this thing out for years.

I think that those who scream about creating constitutional amendments to protect the "sanctity of marriage" should do exactly that - by outlawing divorce. Let's just SEE how long THAT would last before being repealed.

As far as the term "husband" - mammals (including humans) have been forming pair-bonds for much longer than governments have been around sticking their meddlesome two cents into every aspect of people's lives. My husband is my husband whether or not some stupid piece of paper says so or not.

Now, it is true that what the word "husband" means has slightly different meanings in different contexts (colloquially, in state law, federal law, international law, etc.) so what may be relevant in one context may not be relevant in another.

For example, if I were to get married in Massachusetts, "husband" would be the correct term there, but not in Ohio (and also not at the Federal level - I have heard that for certain purposes such as filing taxes jointly, the Federal government does not recognize gay marriages even if the states do). In Canada, however, I would be considered "husband".

As to the terminology, and without getting to heavily into semantics, I take issue with 1. the fact that at one level or another I could call myself one thing at point A but not at point B, because an imaginary line has the power to validate or invalidate that in the eyes of an allegedly fair and democratic law; and 2. I'm not interested in emulating traditional heterosex roles - especially with all the bad juju they've left all over them. I'd rather set a new standard for myself and my partner that isn't cloned from some skewed perception of normalcy.

You have some good points there. Most of the GLBT people I know in committed relationships do better than their married counterparts. I would suppose that, being a social minority, we have to communicate more openly and make a better effort at understanding one another. I know that when my husband and I got married, it was purely a matter of legal convenience. Neither of us needed the legal validation in the eyes of the state. In Colorado at least that was how it was treated. We went down to a court house, got redirected to an office which handles such things specifically (it shared space with the DMV), signed some papers and *poof* legally married and legally entitled to the benefits thereof. The non-social ones are relatively small, by the way. It measn he can put me on his insurance and well...that's about it. Anything else could have been done with a carefully drawn up will. It didn't change the relationship or have any magical effect of making us more of a couple. It was just a legal procedure.

And that's the point. It's not about social unions or anything of the kind. It's not even about social acceptance. It's about assuring that if something happens to you, your partner actually gets first dibs on your property (I've several gay and lesbian friends whose partners died and the courts let the families take everything from them). It's about making sure that if you turn into a vegetable, your partner is able to carry out your wishes. It's about those thousand-plus legal rights which same sex couples can't have...and should.

I don't, because of my unique circumstances (of which you are aware, since I explained them when I intro'd myself on your journal), call my man "husband". He's either my partner or my mate. "Husband" just didn't fit. I only use that if socially pressed to do so.

We also did away with the stupid gold wedding sets. I have a peridot, which is my birthstone, on a double band. He has a double star sapphire. We picked individual rings which each liked rather than something which would publicly announce, "We legally have the right to fuck one another".

I am going to bleh at the "legal right to fuck each other bit" On my list of things to bitch about, that falls right up there with GLBTQ rights and abortion. Also, because I am feeling terrifically lazy and don't feel like commenting twice, I will comment about the post here too:

As a random independant heterosexual female, who considers herself to be very active in the GLBTQ community, not because I give a shit one way or the other about rights or not (I mean, I do, but that is not why I have friends who happen to be GLBTQ..does that make any sense? bleh..) anyways, these days, it seems that the only thing marriage really gets you is a tax break. I mean honestly...that is what they are really with-holding from the GLBTQ community. They make a whole lot of noise about how wrong same sex marrige is and blah blah blah...you've heard it before...as I see it, their opposition to same sex marrige is that it is a sin against the lord...in our "freedom of religion country" wait...wait...freedom of religion? here? HQHAHQHAHAHAHAH!!!HAHAHAHAH!!!! ROLFLOL!!!!AHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!oy! anyways..so marriage is only important if it is sacred in the eyes of the lord..and the dude handing out the tax breaks..and the dude handing out the tax breaks thinks GLBTQ people are gross, so he/she/it claims saintly hood...even though the fact that he/she/it is married has no relavence to his/her/its belief. .so really...since marriage has long since lost any religious conotation...it is really just about the tax break...I do not understand people...I got into an argument with someone once about GLBTQ rights, and they told me that legalizing the marriage (or whatever fucking PC term you prefer) of GLBTQ folk is a dumb idea, because then people are going to want to marry animals, he said "what if someone says: but I really love my dog, he is my soul mate, I want to marry him...how can you say no to the amazing dog-lover if you won't say no to GLBTQ...I mean really, what is the difference?" I got really mad, and told him that human-human marriage is not comparable to human-animal..animals may be self-aware, but not to the same degree as humans..so he responded with "fine then, what about an 8 year old who wants to marry a 40 year old...where do you draw the line? when does it end?" I said to that that I was of the opinion that 18 was a good age...but completely arbitary. Anyways...I have lost my train of thought...and ranted for a very long time..either way...long story short...I am so very tired of everyone taking a simple issue, the idea of the union of two "concious, self-aware, grown-up enough to know what they are getting into" people and turning into a stupid debate where the whole point is missed. marriage should have only three pre-requisites: both parties to be wed are in favor of the idea, both love each other, and both have enough life experience to understand the first two conditions....would that that were our world...but no...in our world, marriage has nothing to do with consentual love...only tax breaks and stupidity.

ok. I'm done.

/me wanders off to attack a tasty burrito! *I love you burrito...will you marry me? ;P*

I do know that, yes. And I know it is a start and will set a standard soon that is both undeniable and nonthreatning, but the fact is that the opponents of this issue will look at any fact based evidence that shows what a healthy thing this really is and notonly denounce it in SOME way, but will counter with baseless logic bought hook, line, & sinker by the masses of hyperreligious idiots who unfortunately have the power to influence how we are perceived from a legal standpoint as unworthy of validation and recognition. My main issue is why covet an institution that they have proven time and time again is nowhere near as sacred as they assert? Why strive to be mediocre, why not be better than them by example and throw their own shit in their faces?

I work part-time with a lawyer and he said to me one day on the subject of gay marriage, "There IS no sanctimony of marriage; straight people screwed that up a LONG time ago. Why shouldn't gays be allowed to marry and screw up their lives just like straight people can?"

(Of course, this is not to say you will screw up YOUR marriage. Hopefully, not. And on that topic I am poor, but if you invite me, I will bring a gift. :-D )

Or rather, why don't gay people set a new standard of self worth and self respect and be better than the hypocritical assholes towing a line for an antiquated ritual that they refuse to accept responsibility for ruining? Protect WHAT, exactly? I'd rather swallow razor blades than copycat what failures straight people have accrued, to include coveting the mockery they've made of marriage.

A straight man once told me about a year ago that he took offense to the way we've turned the word 'gay' to mean homosexual. I retorted "You mean kind of like the way you straight people have murdered the word 'marriage'? 'Cause if you want to go there we're going to call it what it is." He quickly shut up.

I'm inviting lots of folks, and as to gifts, but monetary donations are appreciated but certainly not a requirement!

I find I get so frustrated at this whole Constitutional Amendment business related to gay marriage. People who love each should be able to get married. Case closed.

I was recently in my local Walmart and there were all these heterosexual couples in there, being cranky with each other. One man was yelling at his wife in the parking lot while their child wailed away in the car. THESE are the people who should NOT be allowed to get married!!!

I myself was in a hetero marriage for over 15 years with a man who thought it was "OK" to just move out one day while I was at work because he had turned 40 and his life wasn't what he expected. Oddly enough though, he is already remarried and to a woman with three kids. OK ... wonder when that life won't be what he expected?? He met his second wife at church, I think possibly a charismatic church (well, charismatic by New England standards), that probably disapproves of divorce. Yet he is all "Praise the Lord for bringing me my new wife", "we were meant to be" "we are one life together in God's plan" blah, blah, blah (he has a poetry blog that I have stupidly been reading)...anyhow my point is this -- before I start ranting-- is people who start talking about marriage is a holy union might want to look at the divorce rate before they go too far with that. I know gay couples who are much more loving, much more committed to making it work than many straight couples. And they shouldn't be able to get married? Didn't anyone notice they basically already are and doing a better job at it anyhow???